For school we need to write an essay about questions raised in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. My contention is that Lee suggests that...

It would be nice and convenient if a positive correlation between human intelligence and racist thought existed to the extent that one can ascribe a history of racism to a lack of opportunities in the area of education. Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Racism can surely be taught through words and examples, and it does indeed exist most prominently among the less-educated within society. Others have pointed out instances throughout American and world history that refute, to a certain extent, the assertion that racism grows from ignorance by listing prominent highly intelligent individuals who harbored racist sentiments, although some of the examples directly correlate slave holdings with racism. Ownership of slaves by esteemed and well-educated individuals in American history like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington would clearly suggest that these men whose intellectual and philosophical inclinations provided the world one of its greatest democracies also harbored racist views towards blacks. The most crucial and enduring issue debated at the Constitutional Convention, the future of slavery, was left unresolved until the matter was finally determined with the Union's victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War.

More recently, prominent figures such as President Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, and James Watson, a Nobel Prize winning molecular biologist and geneticist, have continued to serve as examples that the smartest among us have sometimes adhered to racist views. Further, while Adolf Hitler was not the best-educated among Germany's leadership during the 1930s, he could logically be said to have been of above-average intelligence -- an attribute that helped him convince millions of people to adopt the most virulently racist policies ever conceived and to carry out the greatest crime against humanity in human history, the Holocaust. 

In Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird, there is only the slimmest of suggestions of a correlation between intelligence and views on racial matters. Because Lee's fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, was in the Deep South, a vast region of the United States where racism remained prevalent, drawing a direct correlation between socioeconomic status and education is particularly difficult. It is easy to point at the saintly figure of Atticus Finch and advance the notion of a direct correlation between intelligence and views on racism. Atticus is a lawyer, a profession closely associated with higher education. He is not a racist; in fact, as the question notes, it was this kindly, intelligent lawyer and parent who admonished his children for condemning others without knowledge of all the facts. Early in Lee's novel, Atticus cautions his young daughter, Scout, about the perils of condemning others without knowing what those others have experienced in their lives ("You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view -- until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”) Atticus is pointing out the correlation between personal experiences and observations and an inclination to hold views considered racist and anti-social today.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee drew portraits of bad people who held to racist views and good people who held to racist views. Bob Ewell, the main antagonist in Lee's story, is also the most virulently racist individual in town. He is an uneducated drunk who exists at margins of Maycomb society. It is easy to depict this bitter, violent, uneducated man as a racist. Less simple, however, is to examine characters in Lee's novel who exhibit racist tendencies, but who do not fall easily into the category of poor white trash. Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose, for example, harbors seriously racist views, and regularly insults the Finch children because of their father's willingness to defend African American defendant Tom Robinson in the latter's criminal trial. It is revealed, however, that this angry, bitter woman suffers daily from a drug addiction -- morphine, to be precise-- and that she is living out her days in constant pain from the underlying illness. Lee makes clear to the reader that Mrs. Dubose is not so bad after all. Following the old woman's death, when Atticus is explains the need to be nonjudgemental with regard to such people as this particular neighbor, he states that the now-deceased old woman "was the bravest person I ever knew." 

Mr. Braxton Underwood, the owner, editor and printer of the town's newspaper, the Maycomb Tribune, plays a small but important role in To Kill a Mockingbird. In Chapter 15, Atticus bravely confronts the lynch mob that has gathered outside the town jail, in which is held Tom Robinson, the crippled African American being held on a false charge of raping Bob Ewell's daughter, Mayella. Atticus succeeds, with the considerable help of his daughter, Scout, in softening the angry crown and convincing it to disperse without breaking into the jail to seize and kill Tom. The next morning, the subject of Mr. Underwood is discussed. This solitary, dedicated journalist who protected Atticus the night before from a possible riot by holding a shotgun outside his window in support of the lawyer can be assumed to be well-educated -- at least by small-town 1930s-era standards. Underwood is intelligent, and not without his personal charms. He is also, however, a racist, as Atticus points out to his children when they discuss the previous evening's events: “You know, it’s a funny thing about Braxton,” said Atticus. “He despises Negroes, won’t have one near him.” Mr. Underwood, though, risked his life the previous evening to protect Atticus, who was protecting a black inmate.

Lee's novel, and scientific studies designed to determine the validity of theses that purport to draw a strong correlation between intellect, education and racism are replete with examples of individuals who retained racist views even though they were well-educated. The question becomes whether anecdotal evidence intended to refute a thesis that correlates educational level and intelligence with any marked propensity towards racist views can stand up to closer scrutiny. Studies have indicated that such a correlation exists, but these same studies also point out just how slim is the margin separating educated non-racists with uneducated racists. Ignorance is a cause of racism, especially when it is passed down from generation to generation. Interestingly, the wealthiest of Maycomb's families is the family of Dolphus Raymond, who pretends to be the town drunk so that his propensity to socialize with African Americans can be excused by what the town's white population views as a lapse in judgement.